The 25th Nice Book Festival, initially scheduled for May and then postponed to September due to the health crisis, has ultimately been canceled given a new concerning health situation. In the meantime, the City of Nice is offering “The Great Conversations of the Nice Book Festival” starting this Wednesday. It begins at the CUM with Nice-based writer Didier van Cauwelaert and his new novel “The Unknown of March 17”.
The bond between writers and readers is preserved. The City of Nice is offering a series of interviews followed by book signings with those active in the literary scene from October 14 to November 28. This effort aims to make up for the cancellation of the 2020 edition of the Nice Book Festival.
The CUM Highlights the Event
Gathered in the amphitheater of the Mediterranean University Center (CUM), many people came to attend the literary interview with 60-year-old Nice writer Didier van Cauwelaert to discuss his latest work, “The Unknown of March 17”, written during the lockdown.
A title that already places the reader in the book’s spatial-temporal setting, considering the key date: “March 17”. This is the day when France entered a lockdown period due to the rapidly spreading Coronavirus pandemic worldwide.
“The Unknown of March 17”
Instead of retracing the history of the lockdown, the story focuses on a homeless man who finds himself confined alongside a woman of stunning beauty. A sort of grace is granted by the virus present in the book to a homeless person. The virus, none other than COVID-19, still persists today.
“It is a novel that talks about this lockdown situation that can have a paradoxical effect on someone. He becomes a privileged person. People will have a different view of this person, especially because he no longer lives on the street. Thus, I wanted to tell the story of a person who opens up to the world and will live the greatest adventure of his life,” the French author explained.
